Psychoanalysis in the Shadow of Dictatorship. 11.01.2019

Rafael AlvesLima is a psychoanalyst and member of the Laboratory of Social Theory, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (LATESFIP-USP), member of the Clinical Network of Jacques Lacan Laboratory (IP-USP), member of the Margens Clínicas collective which offers psychoanalytic assistance to victims of Brazilian State violence, and former member of the Testimonial Clinics project, with the Ministry of Justice of the Federal Government (Brazil). He is visiting the UK for three months from the University of São Paulo, where he investigates the history of psychoanalysis during the Brazilian military dictatorship. He is the author of (translated titles): “For a Foucaultian historiography for psychoanalysis: power as method” (Via Lettera, 2015). Organizer of “Clinicity: psychoanalysis between generations” (Juruá, 2015). Co-organizer of “For a revolutionary psychoanalysis: Otto Gross” (Annablume, 2018) and “Biopolitics and Psychoanalysis” (Via Lettera, in press).

Psychoanalytic theory and practice is located within contemporary socio-cultural discourse and operates in some kind of “relation” to political regimes. To help us think about this, Rafael will speak about the challenges for psychoanalysis of new authoritarian political regimes and recent trends towards populism. What are the effects for psychoanalysis of the decline of traditional forms of authority, traditional institutions, and the increasingly polemical and uncivil nature of public and political discourse? In Brazil, the current political situation has led to the grave situation in which Jair Bolsonaro has become President of the country and there are real threats that psychoanalysis in Brazil will inevitably have to deal with. The seminar will assess the role of authority and leadership, and the impact of socio-cultural and political changes on current and future practice of psychoanalysis, with a special analysis of the situation in Brazil.